


Paradox

by Faith_Ren



Series: Force Reclaimed [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And Peleth is still a jerk, And so is SEBARRA REN, And the Knights of Ren are BACK, Badass Rey, Because they've got some issues of their own now, But they're all gonna need some help, F/F, F/M, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Kylo Ren Needs a Hug, Kylo Ren Redemption, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), POV Kylo Ren, POV Multiple, POV Original Character, POV Rey (Star Wars), Plus the Nightsisters, Rey Needs A Hug, Seriously guys this is still a slow burn but hey at least we are getting somewhere, Slow Burn, Slow Burn Rey/Kylo Ren
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-17 12:35:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16516610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Faith_Ren/pseuds/Faith_Ren
Summary: He wished that he had done more for her, wished he’d been able to hold her tighter, love her harder, defend her fiercer. He wished he could have given her everything she’d ever wanted, wished he could’ve given her years of joy and laughter, wished he could’ve lived long enough to see the smile lines grow deeper with time and age and know he’d been responsible for them all.Aching regret invaded his heart and entrenched within his soul, digging its claws into his very being, growing tighter with each memory that would never be, mercilessly mocking him for wasting these last days and minutes and moments on questions and doubts and insecurity, on choosing to erase her love instead of embracing her light.He’d failed her in so many things and in so many ways.Death’s greatest and cruelest gift was the simplicity and clarity of thought, presented without comment but with just enough time to ensure nothing could be done.Kylo knew, now, what he had to do.And he would not fail her again.





	Paradox

 

 _You are free to choose,  
_ _but you are not free from the consequences of your actions._

_\- The Universal Paradox_

_\- -_

 

 

He’d heard enough explosions to know that this one was different.

It was low, deep, strange. 

His muscles tensed as it vibrated within his very _bones_ , and his chest clenched in anticipation of the aftershock, of the resulting tremor that would be as brutal as it was certain, of the fallout that would inevitably kill them both. 

But he was not afraid, he told himself, ignoring the painful pinch in his heart. He wasn’t afraid because he _couldn’t_ be afraid, because fear was the manifestation of innate weakness, of a defect that only lesser men possessed. 

“Don’t tell anyone this, kid, but I was _scared as hell_ ,” his father had said, taking another sip of his usual pre-dinner Corellian brandy. “The run through The Pit wasn’t half bad. It was The Maw I remember the most.” 

His father had never hesitated to share his record-splitting run through Kessel’s realspace asteroid belt, much to his mother’s chagrin. He’d never spoken of _how_ he’d done it, of what it had taken to achieve it, had always made it seem like a simple podrace complicates only by an unruly cluster of spacestorms. 

Ben swallowed the lump in his throat and stared across the table. “The Maw?” 

“It’s a cluster of black holes that’ve kept Kessel in its orbital rotation since who knows when.” Han’s voice was uncharacteristically toneless, and while Ben had been young at the time, he wasn’t stupid.

He had reached through the Force toward his father’s signature, feeling his way awkwardly, clumsily, not even sure if he was doing it right but searching anyway, looking for the cause of the faraway look in his father’s eyes, for the increasingly large gulps of liquor he was taking. 

It had only taken him a few seconds to locate the culprit; Ben had known the feeling well, had lived with its quiet presence since he was born, could recall being haunted by it in his earliest memories and his most recent, creeping and lurking but always out of sight. 

 _Fear_. 

“You were scared,” Ben had whispered. 

“What, you think your old man hasn’t had a few moments of freight every now and then?” Han had asked with a wink and a good-natured grin. 

But Ben hadn’t been amused, had been anything but, and he’d lowered his eyes to his half-eaten plate of cold food, no longer hungry but nauseous instead. “No.” 

Han had frowned at the disappointment in his son’s voice. 

“Kid,” he said softly. “Of course I’ve been afraid.” 

“That’s not how the stories go!” he’d countered loudly, angrily, unable to express _why_ he was so upset, so _betrayed_ by the knowledge that his fearless father was anything but. 

Han leaned toward Ben. “What stories?” he asked. 

“All of them,” he’d snapped stubbornly. “The destruction of the first Death Star, the Imperial occupation of Cloud City, the Battle of Endor.” 

“You don’t think I was afraid?” he asked patiently. “We all were, Ben. Me, mom, Uncle Luke –“ 

“That’s not true!” he’d yelled. “Uncle Luke is _never_ afraid, he can’t be, because fear leads to hate, hate leads to anger, anger leads to the Dark Side!”

He'd ignoring the unexpected flash of frustration coursing through father’s presence in the Force, his voice loud and irate. “Uncle Luke wasn’t afraid, he’s never afraid. Not even when he killed the Emperor, when he fought Darth Vader!” 

Ben had jumped as Han _slammed_ his whiskey glass down onto the table, startled into silence by both the sharp noise and the way in which his father gripped the crystal: tightly, possessively, with a shaking hand and white knuckles.

A sudden surge of cold rage ripped through his young body, so violent and penetrating that all Ben had been able to do was march straight to his room, where he’d stayed, door locked and completely reclusive, emerging only after his father had left the next evening on his monthly diplomatic mission to Dathomir.

Just less than two weeks later, his parents had sent to the Praxeum. Just over ten years later, he’d killed Ben Solo. And now, exactly five years later, Kylo would suffer the same fate. 

But he was not afraid; he was prepared, having been passively welcoming death for so many years that it was hard to remember a time when he’d considered it _unwelcome_. He’d never truly understood what it offered, but he’d also been sure that it could provide him with the peace his life never had. 

And so he’d spent the better part of a decade becoming sickly obsessed with and insatiably curious of its ambiguous coldness. He had repeatedly coaxing it closer, nearer, only to thwart it time after time. 

But death had grown bored of his morbid game, the allure of the chase no longer inticing or novel. The day had finally come when it decided to play to win, and Kylo knew there was nothing he could do to stop it. 

Life had not been kind to him, and it was foolish to believe that death would be any different. 

It was only fitting that his fate would be sealed in this way, at this time, right when he’d finally found a reason to live, right when he’d finally found someone to live for. 

 _Rey_. 

He memorized the light golden streaks in her otherwise steady brown hair, bleached permanently by the harsh Jakku sun; he studied the dancing sparkle in her wide and generous hazel eyes, innocent and pure yet knowing and wise; he examined each of the hundreds of freckles that ran across the bridge of her nose and overflowed onto her cheeks; he eyed the curvature of her rosy lips and how they gracefully sat above her narrow chin. 

He wished that he had done more for her, wished he’d been able to hold her tighter, love her harder, defend her fiercer. He wished he could have given her everything she’d ever wanted, wished he could’ve given her years of joy and laughter, wished he could’ve lived long enough to see the smile lines grow deeper with time and age and know he’d been responsible for them all. 

Aching regret invaded his heart and entrenched within his soul, digging its claws into his very being, growing tighter with each memory that would never be, mercilessly mocking him for wasting these last days and minutes and moments on questions and doubts and insecurity, on choosing to erase her love instead of embracing her light. 

He’d failed her in so many things and in so many ways. 

Death’s greatest and cruelest gift was the simplicity and clarity of thought, presented without comment but with just enough time to ensure nothing could be done. 

Kylo knew, now, what he had to do. 

And he would not fail her again. 

He _shoved_ her from him with _every single ounce_ of his Force strength, ignoring the wave of blue flames peaking just beyond the threshold, focusing instead on her, on Rey, on delicately curving her back and carefully tucking her limbs tightly, on strategically positioning her body so that her core would be protected against the impact, so that she’d be spared from significant injury upon contact. 

But her eyes. 

Fixated and staring and mirroring his own, filled with surprise and passion and grief and hurt and love. 

Her eyes nearly undid him. 

But again, there was no time. 

He maneuvered the Force to carefully guide her chin inward until it rested against the nape of her neck, until her hazel gaze was torn from him, until she could no longer see him as he was, could no longer see him kneeling on the ground, drenched in sweat, battling to breathe, racked with convulsions, his life slipping, seeping slowly from each and every pore, evading his reach, slippery and serpentine as it was sucked away. 

He crumpled forward with exhaustion, his adrenaline reserves tapped, his remaining resources dwindling and impotent against the power fluke pull of death, against a lifetime of choices and the untreatable continuum of time. 

He hung his head in defeated acceptance, surrendering to the shower of hot debris, grinding his teeth as the shrapnel shredded easily through his skin, like a vibroblade through a sheet of parchment, leaving nothing but jagged bits of useless flesh in their wake. 

He was shrouded in searing agony, the pain unimaginable, indescribable, impossible, the flames licking him raw, eliciting endless, unrecognizable screams. 

 _No more_ , he begged, no longer in control of himself, a marionette on a string, a puppet without a purpose, a ward of the machinations of circumstance and comeuppance. _Please, please_...

 The Force ignored his pleas.

 _“Would you live the same life, knowing what you know now?”_ it asked instead. 

 _Yes_. 

 _“Would you spend your life existing in the same misery? Would you again suffer through this same end?”_  

_Yes … yes._

_“Why?”_  

He saw the truth, now. _Because it all brought me to her._

_“Then she is your redemption.”_

_No,_ he refuted, although he’d once thought so, once believed that the only absolution he’d find would be through her, by her, because of her.

But she had turned out to be so much more than that. _She’s my meaning._

 _“For dying like this?”_  

The answer was far simpler. _For living at all._

The Force smiled, and Kylo died.

 

...

 

She was still warm.

Unreasonably warm. 

He cradled her body with shaking arms. With a bowed head. With a heart brimming with denial and overflowing with despair. 

She was so small. 

Innocently tiny.

He rocked on his knees. Back and forth. Again and again. As a father holds a fussy and sleepless newborn, lovingly but so tired, so tired.

She was still bleeding. 

Profusely bleeding. 

The durasteel shard protruding from her chest twinkled, gross and cheerful, shining and vivid with streaks of deep purple blood.

It was mocking him. 

Cruelly teasing.

Her death had been instantaneous and painless. 

Clean, resolute, final. 

He found no peace in it. 

Her eyes were open but sleepy, heavy lids resting at half mast, lips parted and caught halfway toward startlement. 

She was frozen, fixed in time, owned by nothingness. A soulless shell with empty eyes and a broken body. 

He swayed obsessively, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, desperately seeking solace in the repetition, finding nothing but a sunken void crowded with despair. 

He’d never learned how to mourn.

 No one had ever been worth his bereavement. 

Dathomiri funerals were reserved only for women who died honorably in battle; those who succumbed to old age or sickness were dumped in the mountains to rot or used for bait to lure in the rancors for slaughter. 

He’d escaped the planet young but had been witness to a handful of burials, enough to be familiar with the customs, to recognize the somber yet stoic chants, deep and loud and echoing throughout the canyon encampment. 

As an enslaved male, his only role had been to help build the committal pyres and remove them once spent, once the frothing flames had died, leaving only a heap of smoky remains and gray ash. 

He _vibrated_ with an innate urge to gather timber, to spend days erecting a memorial worthy of her, of her life and her soul and all that she’d meant to him. 

But Hoth was a dead planet, would yield only prohibitive winds and frigid temperatures, could offer only its bitterly barren wasteland. 

It was a world unworthy of the rights to her body, it’s caustic and frozen tundra a final disrespect toward a being who had epitomized only love and warmth. 

 _“You’re too serious, Ofir.”_  

That’s what she’d say to him with a clucking tongue and folded arms and soft eyes. 

Her unfailing optimism had been both the reason for his love and the cause of his ire, dating back years, back to the Praxeum, back to the beginning.

Their days off had been few and far between, and Master Skywalker had encouraged them to use their recess wisely by honing their meditation or sparring or Force channeling abilities. 

Naturally, his recommendations had always fallen on Jari’s deaf ears, and after years of consistency, Ofir had come to expect her inevitable pounding on his dormitory door in the early morning hours, her rapping knuckles excited and frenetic, unceasing and increasing in volume until he’d will himself out of bed with a groan, shuffle grumpily across his room, and offer nothing more than an annoyed glance at Jari’s upturned and expectant face, her eyes alight with mischievous mirth. 

“Come _on_ ,” she had said that night, grabbing the crook of his elbow and literally _pulling him_ through the threshold and down the hallway.

“Jari, I’m in my sleep clothes,” he’d grumbled, blinking the blurs from his eyes, groggily stumbling down the dimly lit stone stairwell, hissing with annoyance as his shoulders smacked against the narrow and claustrophobic passageway. “Let me change into –“ 

“There’s no time!” she’d interrupted with a short shake of her head, and Ofir had bitten the harshness from his tongue, begrudgingly helping her open the massively thick doors, regretting it immediately as he was accosted by the freezing pre-dawn temperatures. 

His chattering teeth had echoed noisily within his skull as they traipsed through the dark and empty field, his toes curling against the damp dew covering the violet grass, his mind toying with the thought of knocking some permanent sense into her with a swift but firm smack to the head. 

But Jari was immune to his notorious Dathomiri anger, somehow. He knew it, and so did she. 

And as he’d stumbled over a dirt outcropping, he’d pretty much reached his limit, even with her. 

“What timeis it?” he’d snapped in irritation. 

Jari awarded him with an amused smile. “Really late,” she said simply before adding unhelpfully, “or really early, depending on how you look at it.”Ofir swore and she’d laughed. “You’re too serious, Ofir. Don’t be so grumpy.” 

He’d grunted and sulked in silence, following her for a few more yards until her pace slowed to a stop. 

He’d rounded her flank to stand next to her, following her gaze upward into the endless darkness of the night sky, its depth imperceptible save for the splattering expanse of glinting stars, some dim and some bright, but all glistening. 

Ofir had huffed with waning patience. It was aesthetically appealing, he supposed, but he but also wasn’t one to put form before function. Plus, he’d been fucking _freezing_ and tired and in absolutely no mood for mindless stargazing. 

“Jari …” 

“Look!” she’s exclaimed, pointing at the brilliant streak of light cascading across the horizon’s dark canvas, flaring valiantly in a ball of light before fizzling into absence and blending into the darkness of space. 

Ofir had seen a fair share of shooting stars, usually during the twilight hours of his homeworld when he’d be tasked with stoking the hearth fires outside of the Sisters’ huts. But this … this was wonderfully different. 

“Here it is,” Jari had muttered as the one streak was suddenly followed by a few more, and then a handful, until suddenly tens, hundreds, _thousands_ of them littered the sky with blindingly lustrous radiance. 

“A meteor storm,” she’d explained, her voice barely above a whisper. “We’re passing through the Aithne asteroid belt. It hasn’t happened for a thousand years, and won’t happen again for another thousand or more.” 

Ofir hadn’t responded, and Jari had shifted uncomfortably in his silence.

“Do – do  you like it?” she’d stammered hesitantly, and Ofir had sighed. 

“Jari,” he’d breathed with a shake of his head. “It’s … beautiful.” 

She’d positively beamed at him and Ofir smiled, wider and more genuine than he’d ever smiled before, once again proving that she was the one person who could elicit the emotions he’d buried so deeply within his soul, emotions he’d intentionally hidden and carefully tucked away  after Liot had been killed. watched Vexa and her coven tear him apart, piece by piece, 

He had been the closest thing he’d had ever had to family, had been his older brother, had sacrificed himself so that Ofir could have the chance to escape so that he may live a free life. He’d watched helplessly through the viewport as Mother Vexa stabbed him through the heart, an act of standard Damthomiri retribution for assisting in the escape of a slave. 

Liot had helped him lay the cornerstone upon which he built his new life and Jari had helped him construct it, brick by brick, mortar upon mortar, year after year, shaping the structure into not just a house, but a _home_. 

Her death had frayed his spirit and crumbled his foundations, and he was left exposed and bare and too tired to rebuild.

“Ofir.” 

He jerked at the sound of Erez’s appeal and shook his head, refusing to respond, reluctant to acknowledge reality, choosing instead to envelop Jari tighter, closer, hunching as he brought her body flush to his chest, acknowledging the impracticality of his actions but unable to care. 

“Ofir,” Erez repeated patiently, but Ofir shut his stinging eyes, because he was unwilling to meet the young Knight’s eyes, would not face the possibility that he too would be killed before his time, that he too could have spent his life dedicated to protecting the Force’s will only to be forsaken, only to end up dead in the smoky cockpit of a defunct shuttle, destined to buried on an insignificant planet in a makeshift grave, unvisited and forgotten. 

“She died well.” 

 _“Quiet!”_ Ofir screamed, blinded by a curtain of red rage, furious at the entitlement of such a statement, disgusted with Erez’s sympathetic tone, with the false empathy that insinuated he actually _knew_ what this felt like, that he could _comprehend_ what Ofir had lost. 

Jari had been his little sister, his greatest gift, his brightest sun, his utmost joy. She was his reason, his guidestar, his truth, his touchstone. He’d given her his soul, and she’d taken it with her. 

He was nothing, now. 

“There is no such thing as a good death, boy.” 

“Then she died for nothing.” 

Ofir leered at Erez, at the pompously arrogant boy from Naboo, at the spoiled child who had been born into wealth, who had known nothing but silver spoons, who had been loved by both of his parents, who had been doted upon as the only son, who now dared to stand there like his superior, like his elder, like his _master_. 

“It seems that you have forgotten your place,” he rumbled darkly, releasing Jari from his arms and taking special care to rest her gently down upon the cockpit floor. “Perhaps I should remind you of it.” 

Erez tilted his head and peered down at him with those deeply pensive eyes, with that even gaze, with an unreadable expression that was as emotionless as it was meticulous, as indifferent as it was calculating. 

“Perhaps you should,” he said, detaching the lightsaber from his utility belt.   

Ofir rose to his feet with bared teeth and narrow eyes. “I’ll kill you,” he promised longingly, his mouth salivating at the thought of spilling blood, of tasting it on his tongue, of honoring the dead by slaughtering the disrespectful. 

“No,” Erez shook his head. “You won’t.”

Ofir lunged, and everything changed.

 

\- - 

 

_Welcome to Paradox, my lovelies!_

_I am so sorry for the delayed post. I have reworked this chapter three times; it’s still not where I’d like it to be, but I decided I could either do another three rewrites or simply post and hope that you all enjoy. :)_

_Thank you all who have decided to join me on this next leg of the journey. I cannot wait to share this experience with you._

_Xo_

 

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on Tumblr: @faithren :)


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